While doing snowflake math earlier this year, I discovered that snowflakes form in so many different shapes because of the way ice crystals come together at varying temperatures and in diverse wind conditions. This knowledge wowed me so extremely that I shared it with a friend. He of course inquired, “Is it true no two snowflakes are alike?” So, I set out to answer the question of the season.
The idea began with Wilson Alwyn Bentley, who attached a camera to his microscope in 1885 and took 5,381 photographs of snowflakes that fell in his hometown of Jericho, Vermont. He told people and published arguments that, in all his research, he had never seen two snowflakes that looked alike. While this is true on the microscopic level, snowflakes may look identical on the macroscopic level if they are subject to equal conditions. So, if crystals develop at the same temperature, humidity, and water saturation levels, they may appear indistinguishable.
For example, one woman actually did find two matching snowflakes in a Wisconsin snowstorm. Nancy Knight, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, documented two hollow column flakes that looked just alike.
This news shattered my wonder at the world and disappointed me, but the next tidbit I read perked me up: A Caltech physics professor says that even seemingly identical flakes differ on the atomic level, where numbers and layouts of water molecules always vary.
The conclusion: No two snowflakes are identical. Hooray!
